This is a brief post about how things are coming along with adding Nikon support to Mac version Reikan FoCal AF Calibration Software.
Our original intention was to fully release the OSX version of FoCal with only Canon support, then once released we would work on the Nikon support. But as the beta feedback from FoCal has been good with very few things to correct we shifted focus a little to see what could be done with Nikon. You’ll notice from the screenshot above that we have cracked the hard work on getting Nikon support enabled for FoCal!
For various technical reasons, we don’t actually use the Nikon SDK files for communicating with Nikon cameras. This gives us more flexibility and as Nikon supply excellent technical documentation with their SDK packages we can implement as little or as much of the camera control as we like in a compact and easy to use way.
The problem is that with this method, we need control of the very low level communications, and after quite a bit of time working in 3 different programming languages and writing all sorts of fun and exciting operating system bits and pieces (yes, I am actually sad enough to find it fun!) it’s now all (almost) working.
We have a few things left to do before we can release it. As well as detecting the camera, we’ve had Target Setup and all the tests running perfectly so it’s pretty much there, but we need to continue our structured testing to ensure all the little details (like defocusing between shots etc) are working properly. This involves testing on OSX 10.7 and OSX 10.8 with a selection of Nikon cameras.
It shouldn’t be too long before we can get a the Nikon support released – there’s a fair chance now it will be released before Canon get their Mountain Lion drivers available!
On a different topic, we are actively investigating the issues with OSX 10.6. We have found some definite problems due to the way to the way the operating system works which are being worked on now, and we are doing our best to have a fixed version available shortly which will offer OSX 10.6 support.